140731_600Fact-Check: Yes, the Nuclear Deal Hands ‘$150 Billion’ Over to Iran Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi accused “extremist lobbies” in the US, Israel and Saudi Arabia of stirring up animosity towards Iran to prevent it from reaping the benefits of a landmark nuclear deal During the opening statements on Sunday night’s presidential debate, Republican nominee Donald Trump described the Iran nuclear deal as a “one-sided transaction” that would result in $150 billion returning to the coffers of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Fact-Check: MOSTLY TRUE “When I look at the Iran deal and how bad a deal it is for us, it’s a one-sided transaction where we’re giving back $150 billion to a terrorist state – really, the number one terrorist state,” Trump told the audience, responding to a question from the audience. “We’ve made them a strong country from, really, a very weak country just three years ago.” Trump has made this claim regarding the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPoA), as the Iran nuclear deal is officially known, and received some criticism for it. Fact-checking websites such as Politifact have argued that Trump’s claim is false because “the money is already Iran’s to begin with,” but not denied that this amount of money would return to the control of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei thanks to the deal. The New York Times has argued that the $150 billion estimate is a fabrication by “congressional Republicans” far from the real amount of money Iran would once again control. As Algemeiner, citing Omri Ceren of the Israel Project, notes, the twelve-figure estimate of the money the deal would return to Iranian control came from President Barack Obama, not Republicans. President Obama said in an interview that Iran “has $150 billion parked outside the country,” arguing that not all of its funds under sanctions will be unfrozen immediately because “unwinding the existing restraints… takes a certain amount of time.” This money does not include a separate $1.7 billion payment to the government of Iran, allegedly to atone for an arms sales agreement that never went through after the 1979 Islamic revolution. The U.S. government handed over that money the same day that Iran released several American citizens imprisoned on dubious charges. Both President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry, who played a major role in brokering the Iran nuclear deal, have admitted that the Iranian regime will likely use the money to fund terrorism, particularly activity by the Shiite terrorist organization Hezbollah.
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OBAMA AIDS IRANIAN NUCLEAR TERROR
October 6, 2016 Daniel Greenfield
Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is a New York writer focusing on radical Islam.
Senator Obama opposed naming Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps a terror group even while it was closely involved in organizing attacks against American soldiers in Iraq. Then, as part of his dirty deal with Iran, he secretly sent a fortune in foreign cash on airplanes linked to the IRGC.
And, as another part of the secret ransom deal with Iran, he lifted UN sanctions on Bank Sepah.
The United States has gone after plenty of banks for aiding terror finance, but Bank Sepah is somewhat unique in that it is a financial institution actually owned and operated by Islamic terrorists.
Bank Sepah is an IRGC bank. The IRGC, despite Obama’s denials, is an Islamic terror group with American blood on its hands. It is to Shiite Islam what ISIS is to Sunni Islam. And even the Democrats know it.
After the Khobar Towers bombing, which killed 19 Americans, President Clinton sent a message to the leader of Iran warning that the United States had evidence of IRGC involvement in the attack.
More recently, Secretary of State John Kerry admitted that the IRGC have been “labeled as terrorists” when discussing how the Shiite terror organization will benefit from Obama’s sanctions relief.
Bank Sepah however had been sanctioned for something bigger than terrorism. The scale of bombings it was involved in could make the Khobar Towers attack seem minor. Sepah had been sanctioned for being “involved in nuclear or ballistic missile activities.”
Among other activities, it had helped Iran buy ballistic missile technology from North Korea.
Iran’s nuclear weapons program would only be halfway complete if it gets the bomb. It also needs missiles to be able to strike Israel, Europe and eventually America. That’s where North Korea and Bank Sepah come in. Bank Sepah helps keep Iran’s ballistic missile industry viable. By delisting it, Obama aided Iran’s ballistic missile program just as he had earlier aided its nuclear program.
Obama’s holistic approach to the Iranian bomb is to help the terror state assemble the physical components it needs to become a nuclear power. And the truth is hidden within the secret deals.
There are secret deals that Obama made with Iran that we already know about. There are secret deals that we suspect exist. And there are secret deals whose existence we are not even aware of.
Obama rang in Rosh Hashana, the Jewish New Year, by assuring the Rabbis on a conference call that they didn’t need to worry about Iran nuking anyone because “every pathway to a nuclear weapon is now closed off.”
That’s funny because last year he was still claiming that under his deal in 13 years Iran’s breakout time will, “have shrunk almost down to zero.” If every pathway to a nuclear weapon is closed, how could Iran possibly have zero breakout time to make the occasion of the bar mitzvah of his dirty nuclear deal?
And which Obama do you believe? Try neither.
The secret document revealed earlier this year by the AP showed that Iran would be able to get its uranium enrichment in gear after 11 years and more than double its enrichment rate. What happens by the thirteenth year? Then Iran gets a blank check on centrifuges. That’s what Obama really meant.
Then breakout time to the bomb drops from a year to six months. Or even less. Until it hits zero.
But Ernest Moniz, Obama’s sniveling Secretary of Energy, assured the AP that it wouldn’t be a problem because Iran would only be allowed to store 300 kilograms of low-enriched uranium.
Even as Obama was assuring the Rabbis of how thoroughly Iran was complying with his deal, new revelations were emerging of how he had helped Iran fake its compliance with the deal.
That’s the sort of thing you go to hell for. But it’s a little too late for Obama to worry about that.
The issue was simple. Obama wanted to lift sanctions on Iran. But Iran was not in compliance with even his mostly worthless agreement. So Obama decided that it was time to help the terror state fake it.
Iran was only allowed to keep 300 kilograms of low-enriched uranium. Obama agreed to upgrade that amount to “unknown quantities”. How much is an “unknown quantity”? Like the rest of Iran’s nuclear program, we don’t know. Low-enriched uranium, even in unknown quantities, doesn’t sound that scary. Except that according to a former U.N. weapons inspector, it can be used to produce highly enriched uranium. And that’s how you go from zero to a mushroom cloud over your city.
And then there are the large hot cells that Iran was allowed to keep running.
Secretary of Energy Moniz didn’t just lie to the AP. Lying to the media is practically an Obama indoor sport. He told the same lie in his testimony to the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee. Senators were assured that Iran would be allowed to keep “only 300 kilograms of low (3.67 percent) enriched uranium hexafluoride, and will not exceed this level for fifteen years.” Iran didn’t have to wait 15 years to exceed that amount. Or even 15 minutes. Obama gave them a pass on it right out of the gate.
But Moniz wasn’t a rogue liar. He was telling the lie that he had been told to tell.
At the Rosh Hashana conference call with the Rabbis, Obama repeated the false claim that Iran had “shipped out 98 percent of its enriched uranium”. He told the lie even though the truth had already come out at the beginning of September. The 98 percent or 300 kilogram limit had been bypassed by him.
No one challenged him or called him out on his lie. And that is the problem.
Obama has lied about the Iran deal from the very beginning. And that’s not about to change.
The fairy godmother of Iran’s enrichment was Hillary Clinton. The “breakthrough” in the negotiations took place when she accepted some Iranian nuclear enrichment. And then it was just a matter of determining how much enrichment would take place officially and how much would take place unofficially that would be officially ignored or covered up by our own government.
That is how we got to the ticking atomic time bomb.
Obama hasn’t just turned a blind eye to Iran’s race to the bomb. He has empowered and enabled all elements of it from its nuclear program to its ballistic missile program. He has ensured that Iran would have the money, the manpower and the resources to become a nuclear power. He directed elements of our intelligence services and military to prevent Israel from striking Iran’s nuclear program. He even aided its core terrorist organization and its ballistic missile program.
This isn’t an error. It’s not cowardice. It’s treason.
A coldly calculated plan to turn Iran into a nuclear power is coming together. On the other end of it lies the horrifying death of millions.
Why would Obama and Hillary do such a horrifying thing? The American scientists and spies who helped the Soviet Union get the bomb believed that they were making the world a better place by limiting our ability to use nuclear weapons. Their treason almost led to the end of human life on earth.
The Real Cost of the Iran Deal (Ezekiel 17)
An Iranian demonstrator holds an anti-U.S. placard during a rally in front of the former U.S. Embassy in Tehran, on Nov. 4, 2015. Vahid Salemi/AP
By BRADLEY KLAPPER | Associated Press | Published: September 14, 2016
The issue: Last year’s nuclear deal has removed for now the threat of a U.S.-Iranian military confrontation. But the deal rests on shaky ground.
The accord curtailed Iran’s nuclear program, pulling it back from atomic weapons capability in exchange for the end of various oil, trade and financial sanctions by the U.S. and six other world powers. The sides fulfilled their pledges in January.
Relations between the U.S. and Iran have warmed since the agreement, to the dismay of U.S. allies like Israel and Saudi Arabia. The once hostile foes are cooperating to end Syria’s civil war. Each military is staying out of the other’s way as they battle the Islamic State group in Iraq. Nuclear consultations occur daily.
But the next president could have his or her hands’ full. The Iranians are threatening to renege unless they receive greater economic benefits. In Congress, many Republicans and even some Democrats still want the deal’s collapse.
Even if the accord survives, its nuclear restrictions start ending in about seven years — meaning the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran could re-emerge.
Where they stand
It’s basically a question of continuity versus change.
Hillary Clinton helped lay the groundwork for the nuclear deal. As secretary of state, she tasked two of her most senior aides to meet secretly with Iranian officials. Those talks set the framework for the larger negotiations.
When the nuclear accord went into effect earlier this year, Clinton hailed it as “an important achievement of diplomacy backed by pressure.”
Still, the Democratic presidential candidate has staked out a tougher tone than President Barack Obama. In a speech last year, she spoke of confronting Iran “across the board” from its military activity in Syria to destabilization of the Middle East.
Republican Donald Trump has called the Iran deal “stupid,” a “lopsided disgrace” and worse. He says that unlike Obama’s diplomats, he would have been prepared to walk away from negotiations. But Trump doesn’t want to tear up the accord.
Instead, he speaks of tougher enforcement and possible renegotiation. Trump has railed against several of the deal’s particulars, such as the timespan of restrictions on Iran’s enrichment of uranium and other nuclear activity. He says Iran got too much relief from economic sanctions. It’s unclear, though, how he might persuade Iran to accept less favorable terms in a done deal.
Why it matters
Until nuclear diplomacy gained speed in 2013, a U.S.-Iran war was a distinct possibility. Both Clinton and Trump say they would use force if necessary to prevent Tehran from acquiring the bomb. If the deal unravels and Iran increases its enrichment of uranium toward weapons capability, a U.S. military intervention would be back in play.
Any conflict risks broad consequences. Iran can retaliate by disrupting global fuel supplies from the Persian Gulf, through which a fifth of the world’s oil flows. It can unleash its proxies Hezbollah and Hamas on U.S. ally Israel. Tehran can block attempts to end Syria’s war or it can play a bigger spoiler role in Yemen, where it has backed rebels who’ve seized much of the country.
If Iran sticks to the agreement, the next president may still face big decisions.
By 2024, Iran can resume manufacturing and testing of advanced centrifuges for enriching uranium. A year later, it can start enriching more uranium. By the end of the decade, it can enrich closer to weapons-grade levels. Stockpile limits come off. Enhanced U.N. inspections start ending.
All these changes will pose a familiar question for the United States: How to ensure Iran can’t build a bomb? U.S. officials have vaguely spoken of a possible follow-up negotiation. But by then, many U.S. sanctions on Iran will have been stricken from the books and they could have far less leverage.
Why the Ayatollah Beat Obama
By Jay Solomon
Aug. 19, 2016 1:32 p.m. ET
Since the completion last year of a landmark deal limiting Iran’s nuclear program, the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has lashed out again and again at the U.S. for its supposed failure to live up to its end of the bargain. But a speech he gave on Aug. 1 in Tehran took his anti-American rhetoric to a new level. He accused the Obama administration of a “bullying policy” and of failing to lift sanctions in a way that benefited “the life of the people.” Mr. Khamenei ruled out cooperation with the U.S. in the fight against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, telling his audience that Iran’s experience with the nuclear deal “showed us that we cannot speak to [the Americans] on any matter like a trustworthy party.” Many in the crowd chanted anti-U.S. slogans.
Is Iran preparing to walk away from the accord? It’s unlikely. Mr. Khamenei’s speech was classical political posturing intended to rally his hard-line followers. But more than that, his bluster conceals a deeper strategic calculus. For all his complaints about American treachery, Mr. Khamenei and his allies recognize that the nuclear deal has produced significant benefits for their hobbled theocracy and may serve to further entrench the regime brought to power in the 1979 revolution.
President Barack Obama defined the nuclear deal primarily as an arms-control exercise, designed to constrain Tehran’s nuclear program for at least a decade and to keep the U.S. from becoming embroiled in yet another Middle East war. But the White House and its top diplomats, including Secretary of State John Kerry, also quietly suggested that the agreement might open the door to a broader rapprochement between Tehran and Washington and empower Iran’s moderate political forces, particularly its elected president, Hassan Rouhani.
U.S. officials have always cautioned that it would take time for the salutary effects of engagement with Iran to take effect. They have even conceded that, in the short term, the agreement might energize hard-liners opposed to engagement with the West—and that, indeed, seems to be what is happening.
Since the accord was announced last summer, Mr. Khamenei and his elite military unit, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, have moved to solidify their hold. As international sanctions against Iran have slackened, the ayatollah and his core allies have expanded the Iranian military and pursued new business opportunities for the companies and foundations that finance the regime’s key ideological cadres. Iran has continued to fund and arm its major regional allies, including the Assad regime in Syria, the Lebanese militia Hezbollah and Houthi rebels in Yemen—all of which are at war with America’s regional partners—and the regime has continued to test and develop ballistic missiles. The government has also stepped up arrests of opposition leaders and political activists.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry (left) and Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif during a meeting at U.N. headquarters, Sept. 26, 2015.Photo: Craig Ruttle/Associated Press
Mr. Khamenei has been deeply involved from the start with his country’s talks with the U.S. After the U.N. Security Council imposed tough sanctions on Iran in 2010, he became alarmed by the drain on Tehran’s finances. In 2012, he backed secret talks in hopes of relieving the crippling financial pressure. A collapse in global oil prices made Iran even more vulnerable. As the talks evolved into public negotiations with the U.S. and its partners, Mr. Khamenei instructed his representatives to ensure that Iran could keep the major infrastructure of its nuclear and military programs.
Today, the 77-year-old ayatollah—who reportedly suffers from cancer—is seeking to cement his legacy and to shape the political transition that will occur once he is gone. The nuclear agreement provides him with the building blocks to do that, and for now, at least, Mr. Khamenei and his allies look to be the deal’s big winners. The next U.S. administration is likely to face an unhappy choice: to continue to work with Iran or to challenge an increasingly entrenched supreme leader and his Revolutionary Guard.
For its part, the Obama administration says that the nuclear deal blocks Iran from all paths to develop an atomic bomb and that the agreement’s success doesn’t depend on political change taking root in Tehran. They note that the deal is still in its early stages and suggest that an opening of Iran’s economy could help reformists over time. They also insist that it has served the cause of peace in the region. “The president and I both had a sense that we were on an automatic pilot toward a potential conflict, because no one wanted to talk to anybody or find out what was possible,” Mr. Kerry said in an interview. “I have no doubt that we avoided a war. None.”
To understand Mr. Khamenei’s perspective on the negotiations and the resulting deal, the best place to start is Iran’s nuclear program. The agreement requires Iran to accept key limitations: Previously, the country had nearly 20,000 centrifuge machines producing nuclear fuel and was on the cusp of possessing weapons-grade uranium. A plutonium-producing reactor was also nearly online.
Today, only 5,000 centrifuges are spinning, the plutonium-making reactor has been made inoperable, and most of Iran’s enriched uranium has been shipped out of the country. Iran also agreed to grant greater access to its nuclear sites to inspectors from the U.N.’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, to prevent the country from diverting fissile materials to banned military purposes. “There are serious constraints on their nuclear program for 15 years,” Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, an important player in the negotiations, said earlier this year. “Fifteen years, with serious verification measures, should give considerably more comfort to our allies in the region.”
Mr. Khamenei, however, doesn’t appear to share this view of the deal’s constraints. Just as Iran’s negotiators were agreeing to these terms in July 2014, the supreme leader delivered a speech about the nuclear program—without consulting his chief negotiator, Foreign Minister Javad Zarif, according to U.S. and European officials. In the address, Mr. Khamenei said that his oil-rich country needed at least 100,000 centrifuges to power its civilian nuclear program in the coming decades. This was more than 20 times what the Obama administration envisaged. Western diplomats wondered whether Iran’s diplomats really spoke for the supreme leader.
Over the next year, the U.S. and its partners brought the Iranians back down to a capacity of just 5,000 machines. Washington hailed this as a major negotiating victory, but there was a twist: After a decade, the international community would go along with Mr. Khamenei’s vision of an Iran that could develop an industrial-scale, civilian nuclear program without checks on the number or capacity of the centrifuges spinning. The U.S. had won only a short-term pause in the expansion of the Iranian program, and the supreme leader had gained international approval for his longer-term plan.
Indeed, in recent weeks, Iranian officials have talked of their preparations to build 10 new nuclear reactors with Russian help. This will require a steady supply of nuclear fuel from centrifuges that will be allowed to go online in a decade. “The agreement gives us time, provided Iran implements it. But it’s limited,” said Mark Hibbs, a Berlin-based expert on nuclear programs at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “The Revolutionary Guard controls the program, and there’s a risk that in 10 or 15 years, they might decide to restart their [weaponization] activities.”
Mr. Khamenei also came away from the talks with much of what he wanted for reviving Iran’s economy—a longstanding anxiety for the regime. Before the nuclear deal, Iran had been on the financial ropes, especially after the Obama administration ratcheted up international sanctions. The deal relieved that pressure.
The U.S.-led international sanctions campaign against Iran raised alarm bells in the supreme leader’s office in 2013, according to Iranian officials. In just over a year, Iran’s oil exports had been cut by more than half, and its banks were almost completely shut off from the international financial system. Iran’s currency, the rial, fell by two-thirds against the dollar, spurring massive inflation and unemployment. This gave the U.S. an opportunity to extract new concessions from Tehran.
The more moderate Mr. Rouhani was elected president that year with a mandate to improve Iran’s economy and ease the sanctions. His aides say that Mr. Rouhani convinced Mr. Khamenei that sanctions posed an existential threat to the government.
Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani waved to reporters after a press conference in Tehran Saturday, Aug. 29, 2015. Photo: Ebrahim Noroozi/Associated Press
Mr. Rouhani got many of the U.S.-imposed penalties lifted under last year’s nuclear agreement. The impact on Iran’s economy has been mixed so far, stoking charges from Iranian leaders that the U.S. hasn’t lived up to its commitments. Iran’s oil exports have largely returned to their pre-2012 levels, and the World Bank projects that Iran will see nearly 5% growth in its gross domestic product next year. But European and Asian banks remain skittish of financing projects in Iran, and the U.S. Treasury Department maintains its ban on dollar transactions with Iran.
This path of modest growth has worked to Mr. Khamenei’s advantage, Iran analysts say. Far from hoping for a flood of foreign investment, the supreme leader has repeatedly warned his people that Western culture and business could undermine the revolution and its values.
Mr. Khamenei says that Iran must remain economically self-sufficient and independent of the West, running a “resistance economy” fueled by domestic production and capacity. “With its calm appearance, and with the soft and glib tongue of its officials, America is damaging us from behind the scenes,” Mr. Khamenei said in his speech earlier this month.
Mr. Khamenei is managing the economy the way that he wants it—with enough money to avoid a financial crisis but not so much that it might threaten his system. The supreme leader’s “system wants technology, and he wants access to imports,” said a political adviser to President Rouhani. “But his ‘resistance economy’ is a way to keep the West out of Iran.”
In an apparent effort to ward off foreign influence, the Revolutionary Guard has stepped up arrests of dual nationals from the U.S., Europe and Canada over the past year. One of the detained Americans, Siamak Namazi, is an oil-industry executive who has written and spoken about the need for Iran to embrace economic and political reforms. Friends and family of Mr. Namazi say that his arrest was a warning to Iranian expatriates not to return home to pursue business dealings. Many Iranian-Americans have heeded the message. The economy is now dominated by the Revolutionary Guard, which controls many of Iran’s largest companies.
As for conventional military capabilities, the deal didn’t do much to curtail Iran’s ambitions. The supreme leader demanded a provision weakening a U.N. Security Council resolution that prohibits Tehran’s ballistic-missile development—and got it. He wanted the U.N. embargo lifted on Iran’s ability to buy or export conventional arms—and got it, in five years. He wanted to retain Iran’s ability to export arms—and the deal does nothing to interfere with that.
“Ayatollah Khamenei has emerged as the single most powerful man in the Middle East,” said Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert and senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington. “It will take years to assess the full impact of the nuclear deal on the Middle East and in Iran internally, but the hope that the deal would weaken Khamenei and the Revolutionary Guards so far hasn’t been borne out.”
Finally, the nuclear deal also seems to have boosted Mr. Khamenei’s ability to influence the region. In the ornate former palaces and six-star hotels where the nuclear talks took place in Austria and Switzerland last year, U.S. and European officials talked optimistically about using the deal to stabilize a roiling Middle East. They hoped that Iran, the region’s great Shiite power, might play a constructive role in ending conflicts in Yemen, Iraq and, above all, Syria.
It hasn’t worked out that way. Even as the talks continued, Mr. Khamenei and his generals were plotting a much broader military campaign in Syria in partnership with Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to European, Arab and Iranian officials. Starting in January 2015, the supreme leader’s top aides began a series of visits to the Kremlin to chart out a plan to bolster the embattled regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
The result was a highly coordinated operation in Syria that began just weeks after the nuclear deal was completed. Mr. Putin’s air force has pounded Syrian rebels, bombing not just Sunni jihadists associated with Islamic State or al Qaeda but also U.S.-backed fighters. At the same time, Mr. Khamenei’s Revolutionary Guard mobilized thousands of soldiers and Shiite militiamen to launch a ground offensive, with Iranian troops fighting alongside militants from Hezbollah and other Shiite militias. The joint Iranian-Russian operation drove back Syrian rebels who had been advancing on the Assad regime’s stronghold on the Mediterranean coast, according to Arab and U.S. officials, and allowed the minority regime to retake large swaths of territory. The Kremlin announced this week that it has started launching airstrikes in Syria from Iranian territory.
Mr. Khamenei has sworn off any collaboration with the U.S. in the Middle East, even against shared regional enemies like Islamic State. Instead, he has continued Iran’s campaign to control the oil-rich Persian Gulf and weaken the influence of the U.S., Israel and its Sunni Arab allies across the region. U.S. military commanders say that they have seen no tapering off of Revolutionary Guard support for its allies in Yemen, Iraq or the Palestinian territories.
Mr. Khamenei cannot know how the U.S. will respond to his uncompromising stance, especially with a new administration soon to take office. But he may figure that he wins either way. If the deal falls apart, he could call it proof that the Americans never could be trusted and figure that another round of biting U.N. sanctions will prove too difficult to assemble. If the deal survives, he will have his military continue to develop missiles and conventional arms to position Iran to become a latent nuclear weapons power in 10 years.
Either way, it is Mr. Khamenei, not his more moderate rivals, who are acting as if they have been strengthened by the nuclear deal. “Our problems with American and the likes of America…on regional matters and on various other matters are not solved through negotiations,” Mr. Khamenei said in his Aug. 1 speech. “We ourselves should choose a path and then take it. You should make the enemy…run after you.”
Mr. Solomon is chief foreign affairs correspondent for the Journal. His new book, “The Iran Wars: Spy Games, Bank Battles, and the Secret Deals That Reshaped the Middle East,” will be published next week by Random House.
Write to Jay Solomon at jay.solomon@wsj.com
The Problems With Obama’s Iran Deal (Ezekiel 17)
- 28 July 2016
Struan Stevenson, the President of the European Iraqi Freedom Association (EIFA), wrote an op-ed piece for The Diplomat in which he asked whether the deal would collapse under mounting tension regarding uncovered flaws.
The Iran nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), was signed in July 2015 and was celebrated as a foreign policy breakthrough by Western governments but a lot of the terms and conditions were secret; only now being revealed.
The Associated Press published a leaked document which showed that Iran would be able to enrich uranium again in 2026, rather than 2030 as previously reported. The regime reacted angrily claiming that the leak violated the deal and the President of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran (AEOI) Dr. Ali Akbar Salehi said that this leak will permit Iran to enrich uranium at a higher capacity than before the agreement was made.
Ali Larijani, the speaker of the Iranian Parliament, said: “The hostile measures against the nuclear deal have reached a point where Iran was left with no choice but to confront.”
Stevenson, a former Member of the European Parliament for Scotland, wrote: “It has now become clear that the deal was quite one-sided, containing page after page of clauses relating to the lifting of sanctions, in return for which we got very little, apart from a few scant paragraphs detailing Iranian cooperation in slowing down its nuclear enrichment process for a period of up to 15 years, which we now know in fact to be much less. As far as scrutiny of the nuclear program is concerned, regular inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) are limited to the Natanz site in Isfahan Province, the country’s main underground nuclear facility with over 19,000 operational centrifuges.”
He pointed out the Natanz was only revealed to the West by the opposition group, the People’s Mojahedin of Iran (PMOI); Iran had been keeping it secret. If they kept Natanz secret, how can we trust that they aren’t keeping another site secret?
Stevenson, who was also President of the Parliament’s Delegation for Relations with Iraq and the Chair of Friends of a Free Iran Intergroup until 2014, stated: “It should be remembered that Iran entered into nuclear negotiations because, following the whistleblowing of the Iranian resistance, sanctions had crippled the Iranian economy. Nevertheless, to capitulate to almost every Iranian demand exposed a level of weakness that has been eagerly exploited by the mullahs ever since. The lifting of sanctions released an estimated $150 billion in frozen assets, providing a windfall for a regime whose biggest export is terror; a regime which funds Hezbollah in Lebanon, Bashar al-Assad in Syria, the Houthi rebels in Yemen, and the brutal Shi’ite militias in Iraq.”
Iran’s excessive call for retaliation against the West cannot be overlooked; Russia has delivered S-300 surface-to-air missile systems to them and North Korean missile experts have visited them.
Despite drawing criticism from UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon launching nuclear tests in violation of the deal, Iran has not stopped. In fact, Iran threatened to tear up the nuclear pact.
Stevenson recommended that the US monitor the situation closely and adopt tough measures where necessary.
He said: “The West must not be passive when dealing with Iran’s continuous violations of the nuclear agreement and its aggressive regional interventions, terrorism, and human rights violations. It was hard-hitting sanctions that forced the mullahs to sit down to negotiate and thus we should take a tough line by imposing new sanctions for any further violations.”
The Isolated Pakistani Nuclear Horn (Daniel 8)
Pakistan’s Nuclear Terrorism
Pakistan getting totally isolated
Brigadier Arun Bajpai
Pakistan squeezed almost $30 billion USD in aid from America, including military aid. However, now America has withdrawn its troops from Afghanistan, leaving behind a token force of 10,000 troops to assist Afghan government in fighting insurgency against Taliban. It is not that Americans did not know that Pakistan is clandestinely supporting the Afghan Taliban and Haqqani network against NATO troops in Afghanistan, but its hands were tied.
As 52% of Afghan population is composed of Pakhtoons, who are also the main component in Afghan Taliban and Haqqani network, America was initially keen to get the Afghan Taliban on the negotiating table with the Afghan Government to share power and bring lasting peace in Afghanistan.
However, Pakistan is not interested in this power sharing concept as it wants Taliban to rule Afghanistan as proxy government of Pakistan. Pakistan got China also in this game. With Taliban refusing to come to the negotiating table due to Pakistan’s perfidy now it appears that America has given up on Taliban and Pakistan is left on a limb.
With India opening another route to Afghanistan via Cha Bahar port of Iran, bypassing Pakistan, and America signing nuclear deal with Iran thereby removing various sanctions against Iran, now Pakistan is not needed by America because in future it can make use of this Iran route being developed.
Last month in June, Afghan Border Guards on the other side of Torkham border shot dead a Pakistani Army Major. Pakistani defence minister, Khawaja Mohammed Asif was all fire and brimstone proclaiming that this death will be avenged. But instead of directly blaming Afghanistan it included India and America also in the blame game.
Problem with Pakistan is that it does not want to change its policy of using non state actors like Afghan Taliban and Haqqani network against Afghanistan and Lashkar-e-Toiba as also Jaish-e-Mohammed against India. Truth is that Pakistani army has become too soft and political to be able to fight any major battle, so basically these non state actors are its fighting arm.
Today these non state actors in Pakistan have become so powerful that neither any Army general nor any politician can go against their wishes. Instead of mending its ways and taking a strong stand against these non state actors, now Pakistan, knowing that it has lost its value to America, has shifted its allegiance to China and is hiding behind the cover of China.
What Pakistan is failing to understand is that after the recent spate of jihadi carnages in France, Istanbul, America, Australia, Bangladesh and the ongoing war between Shia and Sunni sects of Muslims in West Asia, world is slowly but perceptibly coming together against radical Islam and jihadi terror. World is not going to tolerate the jihadi non state actors of Pakistan.
Leave aside India, Iran and Afghanistan even China is worried about Pakistani non state actors. China has Xinxiang province where one corer plus Uyghur Muslims reside. They want freedom from China. Their main source of supply of arms and training lie in Pakistan. These non state actors in Pakistan have also been abducting for ransom and killing Chinese contractors working in the country.
China has recently committed $46 billion dollars investment in Pakistan for China-Pak Economic Corridor, but it is apprehensive of these non state actors. With Pakistani Army and its policy makers powerless against these jihadis, Pakistan will have to seriously rethink its future strategy.
If it still does not act against these jihadis, then it is fast hurtling to become another North Korea, a pariah country with nowhere to go. Time to act for Pakistan is now or else it will be too late.
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Obama Gives Iran A Sweet Deal
Iran’s nuclear deal starts to end after 10 years, not 15 years
By Rowena Lindsay, Staff / July 19, 2016
The document was given to the Associated Press by a diplomat whose work focused on Iran’s nuclear program and who described the document as “an add-on agreement to the nuclear deal in the form of a document submitted by Iran to the International Atomic Energy Agency.” The IAEA is the United Nations’ watchdog on nuclear research. The authenticity of the document was confirmed by an additional diplomat with access to the document
The nuclear deal, signed a year ago, was intended to prevent Iran’s proclaimed peaceful nuclear research from being directed at making weapons. In exchange, the US would lift many of the economic sanctions that had been in place since the Iranian hostage crisis in 1979. However, details were foggy on what would happen when the stipulations of the deal expire, which varies from 10 to 15 years.
This document clears up some of that uncertainty: In 2027, 11 years after the deal was made, Iran can replace the old centrifuges with new ones that are five times as efficient, effectively boosting Iran’s uranium enrichment capacity. The AP says that means Iran could have enough enriched uranium to make a nuclear bomb in six months.
“The prohibition on Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear weapon – and our ability to monitor the peaceful nature of its nuclear program – remains in effect indefinitely,” State Department spokesman Mark Toner told the Associated Press. “The breakout time does not go off a cliff nor do we believe that it would be cut in half, to six months, by year 11.”
US Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz told The AP said the document obtained by the AP posed no contradiction to 12 months breakout claim because “we made it very clear that we were focused on 10 years on the minimum one-year breakout time.”
When it was signed, many Iranian and US leaders considered the deal a landmark of foreign policy success. President Obama, who has a legacy of interacting with adversaries, was able to make the case that the world was safer as a result of sustained diplomatic efforts not seen in decades between the two nations.
Still, there has been some pessimism on both sides since well before this latest document was released.
“In terms of nonproliferation, Year 1 [of the deal] has been good,” Karim Sadjadpour, Iran analyst with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, told The Christian Science Monitor on July 14. “But I’m not as optimistic as others that this is going to reach its 10-year anniversary.”
For Iranians, public opinion on the deal has suffered because of overly high expectations about its capacity to restore the country’s crumbling economy.
In America, opinions on the deal both for and against have not changed much since last summer when the deal was signed. On one side, 75 national security leaders recently sent a letter to Obama calling for the deal to serve as a model for expanding diplomacy with Iran. On the other, there are are 35 pieces of legislation in Congress related to changing the deal that are currently under debate.
British Nuclear Horn Votes For Nukes (Daniel 7)
British parliament votes to renew Trident submarine nuclear arsenal
British lawmakers voted Monday to replace the country’s aging fleet of nuclear-armed submarines with new vessels, heeding Prime Minister Theresa May’s warning that relinquishing atomic weapons would be a “reckless gamble”.
May’s Conservative government is committed to keeping the country’s nuclear arsenal, a powerful but costly symbol of the country’s military status that consists of four Royal Navy submarines armed with Trident missiles.
After six hours of debate, lawmakers in the House of Commons voted by 472 to 117 to build new submarines to replace the current fleet, in service since the 1990s. The government estimates the cost of the new subs at up to 41 billion pounds ($54 billion) over 20 years.
Although the result was lopsided, the debate stirred strong emotions – and split the opposition Labour Party.
In her first House of Commons session since taking office last week May didn’t hesitate when an opposition lawmaker asked the toughest question for any leader of a nuclear state: Would she be willing to order a nuclear strike?
“Yes,” May said.
May said “the nuclear threat has not gone away; if anything, it has increased,” with a newly assertive Russia and a desire from countries including North Korea to acquire nuclear weapons in defiance of the international community.
May said that although Britain has voted to leave the European Union, “we will not leave our NATO and European allies behind.”
Britain has been a nuclear power since the 1950s, and both Labour and Conservative governments have consistently supported atomic weapons.
May’s Conservatives made replacing the four submarines – Vanguard, Victorious, Vigilant and Vengeance – with four new ones a promise in last year’s election.
The Scottish National Party, which holds 54 of the 650 House of Commons seats, is firmly opposed to renewing the Trident fleet, which is based on Scotland’s west coast.
The issue divides the largest opposition party, Labour, which is in the midst of a battle over who will lead it.
The schism between pro- and anti-nuclear forces has long been a fault-line in the Labour Party. It was Prime Minister Clement Attlee’s Labour government that developed atomic weapons in the years following World War II, making Britain the world’s third nuclear-armed state after the United States and the Soviet Union.
Labour’s official policy is to keep nuclear weapons, but the party also has a large number of anti-nuclear activists in its ranks.
Nuclear disarmament has been a lifelong cause for beleaguered party leader Jeremy Corbyn, a veteran socialist who is being challenged for the top job by two Labour legislators.
“If we want a nuclear weapons-free world, this is an opportunity where we can start down that road,” Corbyn said, urging lawmakers to oppose replacing the subs.
Corbyn gave Labour lawmakers a free vote on the issue, and more than half the party’s 230 legislators voted to keep the nuclear program to protect thousands of unionized defense jobs.
Several stood during the debate to take issue with their leader’s position.
Labour legislator John Woodcock, who represents the town where the new subs will be built, said that, whatever Corbyn said, “it remains steadfastly Labour policy to renew the deterrent.”
(AP)
At the End, Britain WILL Press The Nuclear Button
Theresa May: I Would Push The Nuclear Button
Sky News11 hrs ago
The Prime Minister made the declaration as she laid out the case for renewing Trident during a Commons debate, ahead of a crucial vote by MPs.
George Kerevan, an MP for the SNP, asked Mrs May: “Can we cut to the chase? Is she personally prepared to authorise a nuclear strike that can kill a hundred thousand innocent men, women and children?”
She replied: “Yes – and I have to say to you, the whole point of a deterrent is that our enemies need to know that we would be prepared to.”
During her first Commons speech since becoming PM, Mrs May criticised Jeremy Corbyn’s opposition to maintaining the nuclear deterrent, and described it as a “vital part of national security and defence for nearly half a century”.
Mrs May warned the “very real threat” posed by the likes of North Korea and Russia meant it was essential for the UK to have a round-the-clock capability of launching a missile from a submarine.
“We must continually convince any potential aggressors that the benefits of an attack on Britain are far outweighed by their consequences,” she added.
Theresa May © Sky News Screen Grab Theresa May Mr Corbyn is against replacing the four ageing Vanguard submarines which carry the Trident ballistic missiles.
However, his stance is at odds with his own party’s manifesto, which supports maintenance of the nuclear deterrent – as do leadership rivals Angela Eagle and Owen Smith.
The Labour leader said: “I make it clear today that I would not take a decision that kills millions of people, I do not believe the threat of mass murder is a legitimate way to go about dealing with international relations.”
The SNP is also strongly opposed to Trident, with the party’s Westminster leader Angus Robertson describing it as “an immoral, obscene and redundant weapons system”.
Defence Secretary Michael Fallon has estimated the cost of replacing the four nuclear submarines at £31bn over a 30-year period – with £10bn set aside as a contingency in case budgets overrun.
The Trident nuclear programme is operated by the Royal Navy and based at Clyde Naval Base, commonly known as Faslane, on the west coast of Scotland.
UK Nuclear Horn Ready To Renew Nukes (Daniel 7)
May defends UK nuclear arms as Parliament votes on renewal
Posted: Jul 18, 2016 4:40 AM MDT
Updated: Jul 18, 2016 11:11 AM MDT
LONDON (AP) – British lawmakers are voting Monday on whether to replace the country’s fleet of nuclear-armed submarines, a powerful but expensive symbol of the country’s military status.
The Conservative government is determined to maintain Britain’s nuclear deterrent, which consists of four Royal Navy submarines armed with Trident missiles. It says replacing the aging submarines, in service since the 1990s, will cost up to 41 billion pounds ($54 billion) over 20 years.
In her first address to Parliament since taking office last week, Prime Minister Theresa May didn’t hesitate when an opposition lawmaker asked the toughest question for any leader of a nuclear state: Would she be willing to order a nuclear strike?
“Yes,” May said.
The government motion has the backing of Parliament’s Conservative majority and is almost certain to pass. But the debate has stirred strong emotions – and split the opposition Labour Party.
May said “the nuclear threat has not gone away; if anything, it has increased,” with a newly assertive Russia and a desire from countries including North Korea to acquire nuclear weapons in defiance of the international community.
May said that although Britain has voted to leave the European Union, “we will not leave our NATO and European allies behind.”
“We cannot outsource the grave responsibility we shoulder for keeping our people safe,” she said, adding that scrapping the weapons would be “a gamble that would enfeeble our allies and embolden our enemies.”
Britain has been a nuclear power since the 1950s, and both Labour and Conservative governments have consistently supported atomic weapons.
May’s Conservatives made replacing the four submarines – Vanguard, Victorious, Vigilant and Vengeance – with four new ones a promise in last year’s election.
The Scottish National Party, which holds 54 of the 650 House of Commons seats, is firmly opposed to renewing the Trident fleet, which is based on Scotland’s west coast.
The issue divides the largest opposition party, Labour, which is in the midst of a battle over who will lead it.
The divide between pro- and anti-nuclear forces has long been a fault-line in the Labour Party. It was Prime Minister Clement Attlee’s Labour government that developed atomic weapons in the years following World War II, making Britain the world’s third nuclear-armed state after the United States and the Soviet Union.
Labour’s official policy is to keep nuclear weapons, but the party also has a large number of anti-nuclear activists in its ranks.
Nuclear disarmament has been a lifelong cause for beleaguered party leader Jeremy Corbyn, who is being challenged for the top job by two Labour legislators.
“If we want a nuclear weapons-free world, this is an opportunity where we can start down that road,” Corbyn said, urging lawmakers to oppose replacing the subs.
Corbyn has given Labour lawmakers a free vote on the issue, and many will likely vote to keep the nuclear program to protect thousands of unionized defense jobs.
Labour lawmaker John Woodcock, who represents the town where the new subs will be built, stood to tell May that, whatever Corbyn says, “it remains steadfastly Labour policy to renew the deterrent.”
Copyright 2016 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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